


How to Not Kiss Your Brother

by Winnie_Chester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Kissing, M/M, Unrequited Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Unrequited Love, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:11:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2270964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winnie_Chester/pseuds/Winnie_Chester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Sam didn't kiss his brother, and the one time he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Not Kiss Your Brother

Sam was drunk, and Dean was at least half drunk. They had been sitting on the hood of the Impala for hours, staring at the stars and passing a bottle of good bourbon back and forth.

Good bourbon was a luxury they rarely allowed themselves, but once every other year or so, if the weather was perfect and they weren’t in a rush and were someplace where they’d both be happy to sleep under the stars for an evening, well, on those nights they splurged. Dean tended to be almost as happy with anything so long as it was brown and got him drunk, but Sam, Sam loved good whiskey. He loved the smoky, caramel taste of it in his mouth, rolling the smoothness over his tongue, the hint of a burn rolling down his throat.

These were the nights Sam lived for.

Sam didn’t smoke, had never really smoked, but tonight, lying on the hood of the car next to his brother, listening to the night sounds with the good stuff buzzing through his head and burning through his veins, tonight he was suddenly dying for a cigarette to finish it off.  He wanted to watch the smoke waft up to the sky, wanted to watch the ember burn down to his hands, wanted to revel in the momentary hedonism of it.

 It wasn’t the only dangerous, unhealthy thing Sam wanted tonight that he couldn’t—wouldn’t--have.

 Dean had an arm behind his head and the nearly empty bottle resting on his thigh. They’d started with glasses—or maybe they had only meant to?—but had long since switched to drinking directly from the source. Dean’s eyes were half-lidded and he was relaxed in a way he almost never relaxed, in a way only good bourbon could relax him.

 This was another reason Sam loved good bourbon.

 They’d talked, earlier, but had long since lapsed in companionable silence. The night smelled clean, and the stars were twinkling overhead and it was a night people wrote songs about. Sam turned his head to eye his brother, who was more gorgeous in the moonlight than should have been legal. It was perfect, it was a fucking perfect night, and every cell in Sam’s body screamed that he should do it. If he was ever going to kiss Dean for real, now would be the time. On Good Bourbon Night, under the stars, on the hood of the car they both loved—if there was ever going to be a moment, this _had_ to be it.

 Sam slid off the Impala and threw up in the bushes, instead. 

* * *

 Sam was bleeding. Not a lot-- well, not a lot for Sam, anyway, bleeding was kinda in his wheelhouse--but enough that he was starting to feel a little loopy with it. Or maybe he had a head injury? Sam was even better at head injuries than he was at bleeding. 

Whatever the reason, Sam wasn’t totally unhappy with the way the day had turned out. Sam could tell he wasn’t injured enough to worry, Sam had some experience with that, and he knew that Dean—or had it been Sam? It was kinda fuzzy—had killed the whatchamacallit.  And now, as his reward, his brother had taken off Sam’s shirt to inspect the damage and was running his hands all over Sam’s body to make sure Sam was okay.

 Sam wished Dean would take off his own shirt. Sam reached out to tug on it, but Dean batted his hands away and continued his inspection.

 Sam was bleeding from a cut on his side, and Dean was probably going to stitch it back up, only a couple stitches, which meant it was going to hurt. But mostly it meant that Dean was going to keep his hands on Sam for a little while longer. Dean was going to talk to him in that low, worried voice of his and call him Sammy and tell him it was okay, he was almost done and probably also growl at him to stop fucking moving, because what Sam really wanted to do was to run his fingers down _Dean’s_ side and inspect _him_ for an injury. And Sam secretly loved when Dean growled at him.

 Dean pushed Sam back on to the motel room bed—Sam _really_ loved that, Sam would replay that for months—and splashed some whiskey on Sam’s cut, which burned, _fuck oh fuck it burned_. For a minute Sam was having less fun, but then Dean put his hand back on Sam’s chest, pinning him to the bed and Sam was staring at his brother’s face, the tense line of his jaw, his knit brows, and if it weren’t for the hand keeping him in place, he’d have planted his lips on Dean’s exposed throat and then it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been a serious injury, because Sam would have died happy.

 

* * *

 Sam hadn’t gotten enough sleep lately, and his defenses were down. And the night before they’d both been up till five am doing some research, and though Dean could fucking thrive on four hours of sleep, Sam wasn’t wired that way.  The day felt fuzzy, a bit unraveled at the edges, and though he knew a burst of adrenaline would sharpen everything, Sam hoped today wouldn’t be that kind of work day.

 All Sam wanted this morning was to inject this sludgy diner coffee directly into his veins, or maybe just put his head down on this sticky table and close his eyes for just five minutes. Dean, on the other hand, was animated and chatting in a way Sam could only be if he’d gotten a full eight hours, gone for a jog, and had a balanced breakfast. It was incredibly irritating.

 Sam’s foggy brain was having trouble keeping up with Dean’s monologue--something about Blue Öyster Cult and a summer camp maybe?--but he was pretty sure he was nodding in the right places. Not that responding really mattered all that much, Dean would have probably continued to lecture Sam even if he had given into his urge to get up close and personal with the table.  Of course, it wouldn’t have gotten Dean to shut up, and Sam probably would have woken up with half the salt in the shaker in his hair, or to a sugar packet flung at his face. On the bright side, there was no chance in hell Dean would have eaten his oatmeal with blue berries.

But it was easier just to lean his head on his chin and pretend to absorb whatever History of Metal lesson Dean was so intent on giving. And even if Sam cared not at all about what he was saying, he did love seeing his brother like this. Passionate and vibrant, guard down, punctuating his points with his coffee cup.  It was a side of Dean almost no one got the opportunity to see, and one of Sam’s favorites.

 When Sam was in a dark mood, he’d think _this. This is the person Dean could have been all the time if we’d been raised normally_. But today Sam was just tired, and content to be swept away in the rise and fall of his brother’s voice, and watch his green eyes shine.  Dean had gotten some syrup on the side of his mouth; he’d been dipping his side of extra bacon absently into maple syrup throughout his soliloquy. And on so little sleep, Sam’s walls weren’t quite fortified yet, and he was halfway out of his seat, wanting to lick it off, before he caught himself, and lunged instead for a piece of Dean’s bacon.

Sam’s heart thudded in his chest. Dean objected to the bacon thievery, but he hadn’t noticed Sam’s original intention. Sam’s fatigue vanished, and the day swam into excruciating clarity.

                                                                                                                        

* * *

 Sam was leaving. He’d told his Dad, finally, about Stanford and it had gone worse than even Sam had expected. And Sam had unbelievably low expectations. He’d figured there would be a fight, counted on it, but it had gotten a thousand times uglier than he’d imagined, both of them saying things they couldn’t take back. 

 Dean had tried to intervene—Dean always tried to make peace—but neither of them would back down. Not when Dean begged them to stop, not when Dean stood between them with a hand on both their chests, not when he’d given Sam the look that very clearly said “Please stop, he isn’t the only one you are hurting here.” Sam couldn’t have stopped, he was too far gone, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for that bit.

Eventually Dean had given up, storming off with a “Fine, fucking kill each other then” and finished what appeared to be an entire bottle of whiskey himself.

 When Sam and Dad had finally stopped shouting at each other—not because they’d reached a place of understanding but simply because they had run out of horrible things to say to each other—when Sam had stomped back in the room he and Dean were sharing, he’d found his brother on his back, passed out, fully clothed, empty bottle next to him on the bedspread. He’d knocked over, smashed maybe?, a lamp. Sam’s guilt burned brighter. It wasn’t fair what he and Dad did to Dean.  

 Dean was hurt by the leaving, too. Deeply. The problem was, Sam couldn’t explain to Dean why he wanted to leave. That it wasn’t just Dad, wasn’t just the life, he was running from something Dean couldn’t fix, Dean couldn’t protect him from. It wasn’t that Sam was too good for this life, which Sam knew was how his brother probably took it, but that Sam wasn’t good enough for Dean. He was sick and dirty and he couldn’t inflict himself on his brother anymore. If Sam didn’t leave, he was going to ruin this, and he couldn’t handle that.  Sam was fucking spiraling.

And if Sam had to leave, he may as well do it tonight. Dad had more or less dared him to, anyway, and Sam wasn’t one to back down. And it was better this way. This way he wouldn’t have to say goodbye to Dean. He didn’t think he could bear that.

 Sam stuffed his clothes, a few knives, one gun, into a duffle bag.  He grabbed one of Dean’s shirts out of the only-kinda-dirty clothes pile, and Dean’s gray hoodie because Sam wore more than Dean, anyway, and Sam needed something. 

 Sam had to leave. He knew that. It was leave or eventually kill himself, and leaving would hurt Dean less.

 He shouldered his bag.

 It felt wrong, not saying goodbye to Dean. He put his bag back down.

 Quickly, before he gave himself time to think about it, before he could stop himself,  Sam crossed toward his sleeping brother and kissed him very quickly on the lips.

 _Fuck._ Now Sam had proof he was a sick fucking bastard, who couldn’t be trusted around his own brother. Now he could _make_ himself go.

 Sam picked up his bag and left. He might have to kill himself, anyway. 

 


End file.
